Advertising....

Advertising is paid and/or sometimes free communication through a medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled.

Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services. Some organisations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising but do not strictly sell a product or service to the general public include: political parties, interest groups, religion-supporting organisations, and militaries looking for new recruits

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search engineGoogle revolutionized online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

Certain products use a specific form of advertising known as "Custom publishing". This form of advertising is usually targeted at a specific segment of society, but may also "draw" the attention of others.

The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as AIDS, political ideology, energy conservation, religious recruitment, and deforestation.Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. "Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest - it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes."

As advertising and marketing efforts become increasingly ubiquitous in modern Western societies, the industry has come under criticism of groups such as AdBusters via culture jamming which criticizes the media and consumerism using advertising's own techniques. The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Democracy...

The word democracy was coined in ancient Greece. Although Athenian democracy is today considered by many to have been a form of direct democracy, originally it had two distinguishing features: firstly the allotment (selection by lot) of ordinary citizens to government offices and courts, and secondarily the assembly of all the citizens. In theory, all the Athenian citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state, but neither political rights, nor citizenship, were granted to women, slaves, or metics.

20th century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy," variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonization, and economic circumstances.

In the 1920s democracy flourished, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment, and most the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to strong-man rule or dictatorships.

Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as nondemocratic regimes in Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others. Together with Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union, these made the 1930s the "Age of Dictators" .

By 1960, the vast majority of nation-states were nominally democracies, although the majority of the world's populations lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge

Subsequent wave of democratisation brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Spain, Portugal, and several of the military dictatorships in South America became democratic in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they are now members or candidate members of the European Union.

The number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high and has been growing without interruption for some time. As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Youngsters and Money II ...

This text was written by,Inês Tribuzi, from 11E. It was also the product of a classroom essay.

Enjoy...

" We youngsters, enjoy life as it comes. Most of us have no worries as our parents once had, and we can afford much more than they did. On the other hand...

I think we don't give the right importance to the things that we have. In our " transitory condition" of immature human beings, we are naturally unsatisfied creatures always ready to buy more and more unuseful things but we still think it's never enough.

Besides, our minds are permanently being washed by ingenious advertising strategies that make us become compulsory consumers. Consumerism addiction runs in our veins. And we may say that youngsters are easy preys in this jungle, because we believe that " happiness" can be found if we buy that special perfume or if we wear that really marvellous and expensive pair of jeans.

On the other hand, we get everything we want without any efforts at all.

In fact, all the ads that surround us play a very important role in teens' attitudes. We are permanently under pressure, seduced by the magnificent effects created by advertisements whose targets are teens, so we don't think enough and we immediately buy that product that's so attractive for us, even if it is too expensive and has a low quality standard.

It's not a secret that we live in a consumist world where teenagers are easily influenced.

In my point of view, teenagers should redefine their priorities and, what is more important, be able to select the right option: what's the most sensible choice? - to buy that wonderful and expensive pair of shoes or to keep the money and save it " for a rainy day"?

Nowadays, we have an open relationship ( more than we should) with money.

Some decades ago, reality was quite different than now. As we should know, our parents had less money than we have today, because society was different and as Camões once said" time changes, desires change, too".

To conclude, I'll say that we should give the right importance to money, we should set limits to our abusive consumerism because if we are so quickly and strongly influenced by ads when we're young, later our materialistic instinct will be really developed and we won't have any limits."

Look! When we go shopping, we need those blue shoes to go with that blue T-shirt...but we can't always wear the same bag, despite having thousands of lovely bags in the closet, so we need that expensive and gorgeous bag, the one we saw yesterday... and we want that beautiful, shining, blue belt, the one that our mom doesn't want to give us!

How hard is our life....

And what about cell phones? Our parents don't want to afford us that one which belongs to that specific brand and that has that specific colour, with that new camera with all those megapixels...the one that is equal to that famous person... I guess I have a real motive to kill myself!

I know that money is one of my best friends, but it's always leaving me alone...

so

when I grow up, I'll earn lots of money because I'm a very lucky girl!!..."

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Books IV...

EQUADORis an historical novel written by Miguel Sousa TavaresIt is a book for those that are interested in Portuguese History, in general, and for the History of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, as it depicts portuguese society in the beginning of the XX century, and it reveals the world of slave work in the colonies, at a time when it had already been prohibited by law.The story takes place between December 1905 and January 1908. The novel's main character, Luís Bernardo Valença, is a single individual, dandy in his habits and tastes that is invited by the king, D. Carlos, to be the General Governor of S. Tomé e Príncipe. His main mission has the objective to convince the English public opinion, and the British council in the island, in particular, that the prosperity of the colony had nothing to do with slave work, but instead was the result of a workforce that came from Angola, and that those people were fairly treated by the plantation owners.

Luís Bernardo Valença couldn't even imagine what the future would be like.

He didn't know that his easy life in the cosmopolitan society in Lisbon, was going to be exchanged by the defense of the good name of Portugal, and at the same time the defense of the rights of the workers in the plantations, causing a series of interest conflicts with the Portuguese government. And he didn't know that the discovery of love was going to change his life.

This is a fantastic, disturbing and moving story.

Five hundred pages that travel in time, history and feelings, all in one.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Education...

Teachers need the ability to understand a subject well enough to convey its essence to a new generation of students. The goal is to establish a sound knowledge base on which students will be able to build as they are exposed to different life experiences. The passing of knowledge from generation to generation allows students to grow into useful members of society. Good teachers are able to translate information, good judgment, experience, and wisdom into a significant knowledge of a subject that is understood and retained by the student.Parental involvementParental involvement is an important element in a child's educational development.

Early and consistent parental involvement in the child's life, for example by reading to children at an early age, teaching patterns, interpersonal communication skills, exposing them to diverse cultures and the community around them, and educating them about a healthy lifestyle, is critical.

The socialization and academic education of a child are aided by the involvement of the student, parent(s), extended family, teachers, and others in the community. Parent involvement is more than the parent being the field trip helper. Parents need to be asked about how their child learns best. They need to share their career expertise with the children. Today's educators need to remember that parents are the child's first and foremost teacher; parents, too, are experts, and teachers should learn from them.Academic achievement and parental involvement are strongly linked.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Ressurection...

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Freedom?...

Smoking is a very serious addiction that affects millions, worldwide.

For many years, society has peacefully accepted that fact, which contributed to a higher incidence of diseases such as cancer. The young ones saw in that habit the frontier between childhood and adulthood, so they often started smoking , hiding from parents and adults in general, but soon it was accepted as almost natural.

The problem is that the old ways are changing.

Today, smoking is beginning to look like a major crime. What other words can we use, when smokers are being " persecuted" by the governments.

Legislation has already prohibited smoking in public buildings, schools, hospitals and many others, and in my point of view that is the right measure. The adults, in particular, in places where they are educating youngsters, must set the example.

So, I, totally agree with the NON SMOKING AREAS.

In spite of the fact that smoking kills, should we start a hunt to smokers? I, believe that to enforce the law with very restrictive measures, or by creating heavy monetary penalties is simply taking away the people's right to decide, freely.

Freedom, in a democratic state, is the right to make choices, whatever they might be, and be respected, as long as they don't offend the others' personal choices or rights.